Some Wedding Pictures

Whitney and Joshua got their wedding pictures from the photographer this week. We
were really excited to see them.

The Flower Girl Dress

Here is the dress for our little princess Kayla for the wedding. The pattern that I used is Vogue 7819. The only change that I made to the pattern was to use an invisible zipper versus a normal zipper. This pattern is not for the faint of heart. The fabrics used are difficult due to the unraveling edges. There is also a lot of gathers, a lot. The fabrics that I used is silk dupioni and silk organza. The dress consists of one lining/slip with tulle, one layer of dupioni and three layers of silk organza. That is a lot to put into a gathered seam.

Whitney and I decided to go with all white. The bridesmaid dresses are latte. That is one difficult fabric to match. There was a store in NYC that had lot's of silk dupioni. The man I spoke with told me to email him a picture and he would match up the color. The color of the dress just wouldn't come through in the photo though so we scrapped the matching idea.

Wedding Inflation

Somehow, Jeff and I have lost two check books. He asked me to place an order for more checks. Something was odd though when I went to order. My check numbers weren't adding up. So off to hunt for the 50 checks. I started to rummage through my closet. I came across the same box of momento's that Jeff found my "I love Robin" picture. I decided to take a moment and see what was in there.

I come from a long line of hoarders. Did it have to do with the depression or their German heritage? My grandfather might have been the worst. He was a plumber by trade. With fabric hoarding, you can make very neat piles and stack it and your fabric stash becomes a work of art all on its own. My grandfather's stash was plumbing fixtures. Yep, they all sat in a great big pile in his front yard. Toilets, sinks, etc and grass grew all around his pile. Yep, southern white trash is where I came from.

But, here is an example of the value of saving things. I knew that my mom had saved the receipt for my wedding reception. I didn't know that she had saved all the receipts. She even had her budget in the box. The really cool thing was is that she had the receipt for the flowers for her wedding which was in 1955 (I think.) Her bill came to $42.00. The boutonnieres were 40 cents a piece. The bridal bouquet was $10.00. Alter bouquets were $2.00 each. How neat it was to find a receipt from her wedding.

The cost of my reception was just over $1500.00. This included the alcohol. Our reception was held at the German American Club in Omaha. The buffet dinner was $3.25 per person.

My other receipt is that for my bridal gown. I ordered it at a store in Omaha called Brandeis. My gown was kind of middle to low end price-wise. The dress company was Mori Lee. The price of the gown in 1979 was $185.00

I'm thinking that you could take the prices of my items from 30 years ago and just add another zero to the cost. I thing that get's us fairly close to average prices for today's weddings.

Floral Design Class #3

I'm sure that my three hundreds of followers are possibly tired of the rookie floral designs. This blog was mostly developed to post sewing projects. But now and then, I veer off course. Only three weeks left, then hopefully more sewing posts.

This week's topics were hand-tied bouquets and cascading bouquets. Our instructor said all he used to design was cascading bouquets then along came Martha and she changed the flower industry. He said that he only does about 10% cascades now, the rest are hand-tieds. Whitney was in Houston this week visiting Joshua and her future home so she wasn't at class so you only get to see my designs.

The hand-tied was a little harder than expected. I think part of the problem is that we are working with fewer flowers that what I would want. My hand-tied I thought was slightly off balance. I think the tree ferns should have been throughout the bouquet and not just on the outside.

Ok, warning, minor rant ahead. There is someone in class that either doesn't know how

to count or Princess just doesn't care that she takes more flowers than what we are suppose to. It seems that there are a couple of vultures in class. They swoop down onto the flower tables before the instructor even tells us to and takes all the best flowers. I'm usually left with all the flowers that don't match. Princess's cascade bouquet was twice the size of mine. Grrrr. Can you take what is allotted for you please?

The flowers really wouldn't be my choice. I would use the spray roses only if I had tea roses in addition. The spray roses get somewhat lost because of their size. The carnations are overpowering I think. And obviously, I would not put yellow flowers with beige roses and red carnations in the cascade bouquet. The important thing is is that I'm learning how to do the techniques. I'm not using them so I'm not going to worry about the color combinations. I'm still confident that Whitney and I will be able to achieve the look she wants for her wedding.

Floral Design Class Week 1

Whitney and I decided to take a six week floral design class. We are thinking that we can do the wedding flowers ourselves. So we are doing lots of research in addition to the class. If for some reason we feel that we won't get the desired results, then we will turn to a florist. Our family is pretty crafty so between my girls and my sisters, I think we can pull it off.

Each week we will be making two arrangements. That will include corsages, hand-tied bridal bouquet, a funeral arrangement, etc. Yes the class covers just about everything.

Week one, we designed an arrangement for a vase and an arrangement with an oasis.